Cigarette Lady

I’m completely distracted by the crows’ frenzied fracas on the telephone lines above me. They’re creating quite a stir. Their caw caw CAWS drawing my attention upward instead of where it usually is: ahead of me to avoid any oncoming walkers in preparation for social distancing.

            So, I don’t see her till I’m almost upon her. She’s walking down Esmond, her hair a wild tumble of dark curls, a brownish bandana round her head holding them at bay. She’s in camouflage peddle pusher lengthy pantaloons, a tight greenish mid-drift showing tank top.

            And bare feet.

            This is what I try not to stare at as she weaves toward me, after something. I’m not sure what at this point, but I greet her tentatively, “Good morning.”

            “Good morning,” she returns, a crooked smile aimed my way. She’s holding a cigarette toward me, gesturing. “Do you have….?”
            She doesn’t need to finish the question. I know she wants a ‘light’ from me. A match? A lighter? I always wonder about this custom. Cigarette smokers asking random strangers for a light. Maybe it’s part of the American culture, dating back from 40s Hollywood movies when Lauren Bacall asked Humphrey Bogart for a light. She bends her head toward him, he lights her up. To Have or Have Not: Classic.

            The asking of me always baffles me though. I’m certainly no Bogart.  Do I look like a smoker? Do I look like I’d be carrying a lighter or a pack of matches as I’m marching down 32^nd street on a Saturday morning?

             And, so I tell Cigarette Lady, “No, I don’t ….have anything….”

            She nods at me, not really expecting it? Or she would or will just keep asking anyone she meets this morning in order to get her nicotine fix?

            It’s an intense addiction. I am lucky to have never had it, but I understand addiction, at least intellectually. Unless swimming counts. For me, it is an addiction. That obsession with craving it, to have it at any cost, even if you can’t have it. It’s not a controllable behavior, is it?
            Watching Love the other night on Netflix, Gillian Jacob’s character, Micki, was trying to quit smoking. She went outside for a ‘cigarette break’ and met her cohort of fellow smokers, both of whom were puffing away. She wanted to smell the woman’s hand. The nicotine heaven of the scent. “Can I just smell your hand?” she’d asked, desperation in her voice. “Ewwww! No way….” smoker colleague had recoiled. “Please please PLEASE just let me smell your hand.” Micki had grabbed her hand, shoving her nose down into the woman’s palm to inhale the scent, while her colleague rolled her eyes. After a few seconds, Micki’s eyes closed in Nicotine Bliss, she hands her hand back to her. “Thanks for that,” she says. “I’ll be okay now.”

            It’s a funny scene. But it’s also a telling show of just how powerful an addiction smoking is. So this morning, when Cigarette Lady asks me for a light, and all I can think about are her bare feet, her unprotected midriff, her lack of any acknowledgment of social distancing---I mean, how would that have worked if I had had a light? I wouldn’t have been able to light her cigarette for her at 6 feet away. Would I have just thrown the lighter or the box of matches on the ground, backed away, watched her pick whatever I had left, till she lit her cigarette? And then, she’d just inhale, gratified and thankful. We'd both go on our way. I'd leave the matches or lighter or just tell her she could keep them. After all, they may have been contaminated by the Virus, right?

            I felt so bad for her. It was something about the incongruence of the bare feet and the hunger for nicotine that created a hole in my heart.

            I watched her continue her meander down Esmond Street. No sign that the bare feet were an impediment to travel.

            I headed up 32^nd, the echo of the crows’ cacophony still ringing in the air;  breathing in the clean morning air, I walked on.